A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews and the notes about the realism of this fic, all your reviews are so greatly appreciated.
#
Talk about Revolution, Its Independence Day
#
Hordes of people tore around the littered streets, screams cutting around them. The blue truck surged inside the swollen current of the crowd, swirling gas rising and eating everything in its path. Marcel' s hands were fastened around the steering wheel, twisting and spinning the wheel as he tried to plough around the masses. Jamie's head lolled to the side, blood trickling from his nose to Bonnie's sploshed arm as she tried to secure his head back onto the head rest. Some over-zealous officer had struck him in the head in all the frenzy, or maybe it had been a T.V camera from one of the frenzied reporters, she couldn't be sure and it didn't matter. Her brother was hurt, they were all hurt.
"Jamie, you got to stay up" she cried, shaking him roughly. Fumbling blindly with tears streaming down her soiled cheeks, she squeezed the back of his neck. Everything was burning from the teargas. Her eyes burned deep into their sockets, her nose was dripping a darn river and her skin was burning so badly, it felt like fire ants were crawling all over her arms and legs.
She threw her squinted eyes behind her to see his father's red Buick crawling through the waves of people, it buoyed like a lifeboat in an ebbing sea and the crowd was gripping on to it.
"We got to git Jamie to the hospital" Bonnie yelled above the commotion.
"Naw, I'll be right as rain in a minute, just wanna go home is all" he shrugged a shoulder petulantly, pushing her nagging hands off him.
Marcel whirled back around trying to find a way out of the wild mob that had hemmed the cars in. There were faces, endless faces choking inside the smoke; they rocked the automobiles, tugged furiously at the doors and slapped the sweaty car windows with their greasy palms. The crowd was panicked, running and crawling on their bellies in an effort to run from the teargas, to flee the whistle of rubber bullets that were soaring over their heads.
xXx
Damon woke up to a sense of sweat trickling down the back of his neck; he was greasy and hot inside his grandfather's Rolls Royce, smothered inside the antique car. Gingerly, he reached his shaky hand to the back of his neck to pry the shirt sticking to his nape.
His fingers came back wet, red and oily. It wasn't sweat leaching down his collar, it was blood. His heart startled in his chest when he realized that someone was bashing his window with a weapon. Damon blinked owlishly, raking a hand through his matted hair and coming back with more blood. He was hot and cold, clothes crumpled and soiled as he rolled down the window tentatively with a lick of his salted bloody lips.
"Salvatore, you right there, son?" the deputy officer scrutinized him, peering around inside the steamed car.
"Yes, sir" Damon garbled, still not quite sure how badly he'd been hurt. He recalled little except for grasshoppers and the colour green.
"You okay to drive home?" The deputy officer inquired, raw sunlight slanting across his features making him look like a cartoon character. He looked like a character in the comic books Stefan used to read when they were little, mouthing out the dialogue while he leafed through the book with crumpled eyebrows.
"Yeah, I think so" Damon mumbled, his inflamed face puckered against the sun and the thinning teargas.
"I can escort you if you like?"
"Naw, thanks officer" he waved him off with his hand before starting the engine.
"I know your granddaddy, "the deputy officer grinned, fingering his belt and hoisting up his sooty khaki trousers "he a good man" he said, beaming and pressing his hips closer to the grimy door.
"Aint he though?" Damon toyed with him as he swerved the steering wheel "I'll tell his ass you sent your greetins" he yelled, rushing past the hulking man. Running his eyes over the street, Damon measured the aftereffects of the small riot. Tangled clumps of people gathered around wailing ambulances, hunched and bleeding like soldiers deep in wet rat infested trenches. The journalist were still lurking around, limping and haemorrhaging but hoisting their cameras and their microphones trying to get that money shot. Mystic Falls was finally alive and finally, so was he.
He left down and bounded for the old plantation, Wildwind. He drove through a tunnel of trees that leaned toward each other, knobby branches interlaced like old crooked fingers creating a long channel like the belly of river serpent. He winced at the chinks of raw sunlight cutting through tangled branches and purple foliage. His eyes were hurting and he felt red, raw and ragged all over.
X
Flowering Wisteria smothered the walls, dense leaves flung down a thick shade on the winding veranda. Silas was sprawled on a sofa against a pile of embroidered silk cushions listening to Strauss's Morgen.
Damon's bare feet shuffled on the Persian rug covering the floorboards before he tossed himself on the sofa opposite his grandfather. His blue eyes took in the muggy heat of the lush green garden scattered with fat little sandstone cherubs and the smell of gardenias was intoxicating in the oppressive heat.
"Thank you, Annabelle" Silas grinned, tapping her flecked hand as one would pat an old, mangled dog.
"Yes, sir" the old woman grinned, baring her white teeth to their black roots.
Annabelle had been with his family for years, likewise her mother and her mother before that. She wasn't a slave, Giuseppe had endlessly assured the boys but Damon often wondered why Annabelle never left. He pondered why anyone would be so resolute and proverbially loyal to a family like his, a family of former slave owners.
"You feelin better?" Silas asked, observing him with his filmy blue eyes, their creased eyelids sketched with blue veins like a fishermen's net.
"Yeah"
"Heard about you going down to that courthouse" he announced, studying him intently for a moment.
"Did you now?"
As Damon replied coolly with an air of sheer delight, Giuseppe rushed into the covered veranda in flapping seersucker jackets and whipping needlepoint ties. He was white with rage, feet striking the floorboards as he stomped with a determined gait toward the pair.
"What the heck were you doin down at that courthouse today?" he snapped at his son like a dog chastising its young "you tryin to git yourself killed?"
"I had every right to be there" Damon reasoned, stirring slowly at his sweet tea.
"Damon, how you choose to tickle your own fancy is your own-" he began slowly as if groping for the right words, the right way to frame the lecture he was tending to his wild son.
"I was there to observe the hearing, aint that what you want? " Damon challenged with a shrug of his shoulders, shooting his father a glance from the rim of his cup "I was there observing as a lawyer" he smirked, baiting him.
"Not with this trial, son" his father shook his head, checking his pockets for a lighter "it's too dangerous" he fingered his blazer pocket , pulled out a packet of cigarettes and plucked one out.
"And now with them boys securing a bail hearing and all these damn reporters crawling around everywhere like newly spawned maggots-well-"Giuseppe shook his head imperceptibly lighting his cigarette.
He began to cough deep chesty seizures before Silas said, "You fight like a gator, don't you boy? "His airy blue eyes fixed on Damon while Giuseppe seized his coughing, barks sliding into groans.
"You're more like me than you realize, son" Silas grinned, thrusting a sparkling glass of whisky into his grandson's hand.
"I'm nothin like you, ol' man" Damon replied, lips writhed into a snarl then he hesitated before taking the glass "I'm nothing like any of y'all" he declared with a pained scowl, gulping down the revivifying shot.
xXx
Three days had passed and the townsfolk were still gassing on about the courthouse incident. You had some folks talking about how Martin Luther King wouldn't be too darn happy about the new turn of events, how the country needed a president like Bill Clinton again to charm the folks right on to the Promised Land. Then you had some folks talking about how people needed to rein in them niggers, how terrorism was ruining the country and destroying the South. Folks were growing scared and the bombings in Iraq weren't helping any. They had sons and daughters out there in the desert fighting the war and here they were, back home fighting their own war. All the talk was about as useful as a trap door in a canoe when it came to Bonnie. All she cared about was Emily getting out of that hospital and coming back home.
"Well I'll be darned!" Jamie exclaimed, eyes flung toward his sister as she climbed down the timber stairs" you in a floral dress?"
"Go on, quit your gawkin!"
"You tryna look pretty for all 'em reporters?" he leaned against the gleaming car, a ratty rag still in his hand.
"Jamie, you're dumber than a bucket of rocks" she insisted as he spun back to finish polishing the car. The hot sun beat against the polished red paint and Bonnie had to shield her eyes with her hand. Anyone would think they were getting ready to drive down to some parade or something and not the hospital to see Emily.
"Good job, son" Rudy praised him with a slap across his shoulder. Jamie flinched from the sting, but he feigned a broad smile for his father. Bonnie could tell that her brother still ached from his injuries but he wasn't letting on.
"You bringin that with you?" her father motioned to the teddy bear in Bonnie's hand as he positioned a sheet of newspaper on his car seat to form a barrier between him and the scorching heat of the leather seat.
"Yeah, this here's Ms Cuddles."
"Your old teddy bear?" Marcel asked as he hauled Emily's Barbie quilt into the backseat of the blue truck.
"Yup, I'm passing it down to Emily"
"You sure you can part with that ol' thing?" Grams asked, brushing past her on the stairs on her way to the Buick. She lined an array of lunchboxes along the dashboard, dishes like the crackling fried chicken she had prepared for Emily should she wake up. Sheila, her grams didn't want Emily feeding on soggy, tasteless hospital food when she woke up from the coma she had slipped into six days ago.
"Hey, she aint old!" Bonnie laughed "Besides, I reckon my sister need Ms Cuddles a heck more than I do right now" she said mounting her older brother's truck and resting her head on a coil of white rope. Marcel often used it to tow his truck when he got stuck someplace, that and the jumper cables under the seat. The truck was clean and smelling like pine because of the small cardboard tree dangling from the rear view mirror. It looked brand new, save for the dent on the driver's side from the courthouse incident.
X
When they reached the hospital, the doctors sprang for their daddy and spoke in low, soft murmurs in the corridor not far from them. Bonnie thrust her shoulders, trying to peer over her brother's heads
"What's happening?" she asked, jostling past Marcel but he blocked her path. With his shirt sleeves rolled up, he held onto Emily's quilt and Jamie stood beside him clutching a wilted bouquet of daisies.
"When can we see Emily?" Bonnie muttered, hitching herself onto Jamie's arm as her heart started its rapid pound against her ribcage. She didn't like the way the doctor raked his hand through his hair in an attempt to avoid Rudy's eyes or the way her grams shook her head as she tried to snatch Rudy's arm before he marched down the corridor bounding for a small room.
"Daddy?" she pleaded tearing away from her brothers and running down the hall to find her father. She ran blindly, hot and searing with her heart hammering hard against her chest, the pounding spiralling up her throat. Bonnie found him in a small room with sputtering lights that rushed past her as she lunged for the cot dodging her gram's feeble hold on her.
"Emily!" Bonnie sprang for her little sister's face. Emily's jaw was slack, lifeless eyes starring right up at the ceiling at them sputtering yellow lights. Bonnie's father was bawling, a soundless scream that emptied his lungs and left him sagging like a hollow man. Bonnie's own chest felt empty, like she had nothing left to give, no voice and grams sat there like one of those dolls made of straw with buttons sewn in where the eyes were supposed to be. She slouched against the stark white staring vacantly at nothing.
Bonnie hooked her arm around Emily's small shoulders, raising her head with her right hand.
"Em, "she gulped dead air into her lungs, "I brought Ms Cuddles for you. She's yours now"